The pen is mightier than the web design world’s favourite image creation and manipulation application, Photoshop, when it comes to preparing website mockups, according to Jason Fried.
Photoshop is repeating yourself. Ok, so you’ve spent 3 days on a mockup in Photoshop. Now what? Now I have to make it all over again in HTML/CSS. Wasted time. Just build it in HTML/CSS and spend that extra time iterating, not rebuilding. If you’re not fast enough in HTML/CSS, then spend the time learning how to create in HTML/CSS faster. It’s time well spent.
Certainly the last few times I’ve re-designed disassociated, it’s primarily been by way of pen and paper. I’ve prepared “mockups” of individual elements, mainly the header logo, as part of the first stage of building a layout, but never a full page.
